Dave K wrote:I dunno. It wouldn't surprise me since he has done a pretty good job of messing with things before.

Who is the "deleted dude" being talked about?

Word from Matt was that an elf entered an invalid IP address in the banning process. Numbers have to be less than 255 between the dots, but something like "407" was used. Of course that *shouldn't* take down the server, but apparently there is a bad error trap or something, and it does just that. Anyway, I don't see how it could have been done by a rogue member, deleted or otherwise. Probably an elf error. Not sure which one, though. So far, Dave and I are professing innocence.

Bob Burd wrote:. . . something like "407" was used.

Ah. Still safer than this, though:

Bob Burd wrote:

Dave K wrote:I dunno. It wouldn't surprise me since he has done a pretty good job of messing with things before.

Who is the "deleted dude" being talked about?

Word from Matt was that an elf entered an invalid IP address in the banning process. Numbers have to be less than 255 between the dots, but something like "407" was used. Of course that *shouldn't* take down the server, but apparently there is a bad error trap or something, and it does just that. Anyway, I don't see how it could have been done by a rogue member, deleted or otherwise. Probably an elf error. Not sure which one, though. So far, Dave and I are professing innocence.

Me too. Wasn't banning anyone.

was the deleted dude from a "familiar" IP address? That would be pretty shitty if they planned it that way.

I'm the one that caused all the trouble. I've since gone over the scenario with Matt. SP's system brought up the IP address of the offender, which has apparently caused much trouble here before. After writing it down, I simply copied it and pasted it into the ban IP address window and hit submit. I then went to bed. I had no idea SP had wigged out as a result of my action until the next day.

Matt and I have discussed the matter. He never thought a small three-digit number would have such a massive affect on the server, but it did. So yeah, I'll obviously be much more careful in the future (I was not aware of the 255 rule). We've come to the conclusion that this may have been a deliberate set-up, but there's no way to tell for sure. There are folks that are not only sore at me, but sore at SP in general and we'll just have to get through those matters as they come one at a time.

Anyway, my sincere apologies for this mishap, for the grief, anguish and extreme emotional trauma this may have caused our members. As for our members' spouses, Bryan Benn reports they were most pleased with this turn of events. I'll say to them, "you're most welcome!"

Aaron Johnson wrote:(I was not aware of the 255 rule).

The programmer (long before you) should have put in bounds checking, so I wouldn't be so contrite. A good program would have told you the number was unacceptable.

You were just a "bit" over. Originally IP addresses had 4 segments of a byte (8 bits) each, so the largest positive number for each segment was 2^8 - 1 = 255. Even though we were supposed to go to 128 bits a long time ago... well, we were also supposed to go metric, and you know how that worked.

The bounds checking also has to look for reserved 8-bit numbers and combinations of all bytes in the address.

MoapaPk-Thanks. As we should have gone metric long ago, so goes SP's woes. There are many things to be fixed. The IP address thing though was a lesson learned for me, so the staff will have to be SP's IP screening system.

Aaron Johnson wrote:I'm the one that caused all the trouble.

Ban Him!

JasonH wrote:

Aaron Johnson wrote:I'm the one that caused all the trouble.

Ban Him!

Even worse: he has to moderate prate & peanut butter.

Dave K wrote:

JasonH wrote:

Aaron Johnson wrote:I'm the one that caused all the trouble.

Ban Him!

Even worse: he has to moderate prate & peanut butter.

I'm fishing lots. Didn't affect my day. More of these hic-ups should occur.

Keeps them folks coming back for more.

Hmmmm, could it be a plot to........ Nah!


Going fishing.